Quick Review

If all you want is a quick review that’ll reveal to you if the phone is ideal for you, this section will be sufficient for you.

The Samsung GALAXY K Zoom is a capable camera smart phone. You can treat it as a phone and call upon it to shoot superb pictures for you in auto mode, manual and other pre-defined modes. You won’t lack options when you decide to turn the K Zoom to a camera.

When I reviewed the Samsung GALAXY S5, I praised it’s ability to shoot excellent photos. That’s completely true, but the K Zoom is a better camera. While the S5 is 16 MP, the K Zoom is 20 MP and it shoots in manual mode, unlike the S5. What this means is that you can shoot long exposure shots.

One of the rules of smartphone cameras is that you do not use the zoom feature. Most smartphone spoils the picture you’re shooting ones you use the zoom feature. The resulting image ends up being blurred and noisy. It is not so with the K Zoom. I have shot very excellent photos at full zoom using the K Zoom's zoom feature.

As a phone, it equally delivers. It has the ultrpower saving mode that is available on the Samsung GALAXY S5. If the battery power is going down, you can turn this feature on and extend the amount of time you’ll get with the battery. It is an Android 4.4 KitKat modified by Samsung as TouchWhiz.

Cheaper and smaller in size than the S5, it is a very good bargain if what you’re looking for is a compact camera that you can use to share photos to social media, share memories with friends when you’re going for vacation and if you don’t want to lug a DSLR camera about. The phone capability of the K Zoom is awesome as well. To enjoy shooting lots of pictures with it and not easily run out of memory/storage, ensure that you get an external micro SD to store audio, pictures and videos.

You’ll have 8 GB of onboard storage, with some space already used for apps that are bundled with the device like; AllShare, Chrome, Gmail and the like.

My experience using the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom for more than a month

This is a loan unit from Samsung Mobile Nigeria. I have been scheming how I am not going to give it back to them as I have grown so fond on it LOL!.

It is the only camera phone from Samsung that has gathered the same attention that Nokia Lumia Smarphone camera phones get from me.

While I am planning to get the Samsung GALAXY S5 for myself, I am having a hard time deciding if I should go for the K Zoom instead.

While the K Zoom shoots superb photos, like the Nokia Lumia 1520 (at 6” size), I can't shoot pitcures discretely while using the K Zoom. Why? Once I launch the camera, the camera opens and the lens of the K Zoom comes out.

Every other time the camera is lauched, the lens will protrude out.

I also cannot comfortably insert the K Zoom in my back or front jeans pocket without my pocket bulging out. Most of the time, the K Zoon is in my hand or my backpack.

The internal storage of the K Zoom is also only 8 GB. After shooting a couple of pcitures, I find that I run out of storage. This prevents me from updating and installing new apps.

Battery

The battery on the K Zoom lasts me till about 5 p.m. That's after taking of charging socket at 7 a.m. in the morning. This is considering the fact that on average, I shoot lots of pictures during my morning commute and through the day. Also, it turned into the official camera around the office.

If you use the K Zoom as your primary device, there's the Ultra Power saving mode. This mode will alow you to use the phone for an extended period of time till you'll be ready to charge.

It is also worthy to note that the battery of the K Zoom is user replacable. You can carry extra battery if you will be shooting lots of photos.

Connectivity

I like the fact that I can share pictures using Bluetooth and using a Flash Share app called Xenda app that I downloaded from Google Play Store.

You can easily transfer media--photos and videos--from the phone to your laptop without downloading any phone softway like Samsung Kies. But on the Mac, you'll need to download Android Manager for you to performt his function.

Camera and Video

Although it shoots excellent pictures, it has some limitations.

Don’t expect the Samsung GALAXY K Zoom to give you the same quality you’ll get from a DSLR.

You cannot attach external flash. You can get a maximum of ISO3200 in manual and minimum of ISO100. What this means is that you can take long exposure shots at night, but long exposure pictures requires that your hand is very still or you have a tripod stand. You might want to by a tripod stand that can work with it. You can also vary the exposure from 1/2000s to 16s.

The design is such that it doesn’t feel as awkward as the S4 Zoom when making phone calls with it. I use it for phone calls in public places with ease and I don’t get the kind of look I got when I was using the S4 Zoom.

The K Zoom has Image stabilization. If you are shooting pictures or shooting videos and your hand shakes, the device will help correct it by using the image stabilization feature. I took some pretty decent videos with the K Zoom. While it doesn’t support external microphone, you can use it for Video Blogging with its decent audio production.

Conlusion

K Zoom wins as a phone and as a point and shoot camera. Going for holiday? It will be sufficient. If you're also a social media manager or a journalist on a budget or you want to pack very lite, the K Zoom will work just fine.

I'll score the K Zoom 8/10 overall.

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